Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis and France’s Minister of Immigration and Integration Eric Besson yesterday sent a joint letter to the Spanish government, which currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, proposing an upgrade in the powers of the EU’s border-monitoring agency Frontex to crack down on illegal immigration.

The proposals listed in the letter, sent to Spanish authorities ahead of an informal summit of EU interior ministers due to start in Toledo today, include “closer operational cooperation between Frontex and migrants’ countries of origin and transit countries.” The Franco-Greek initiative also proposes “the examination of the possibility of regular chartered return flights at the expense of Frontex.” […].

Prime Minister George Papandreou yesterday heralded the creation of a new independent agency for the processing of thousands of immigrants’ asylum claims during talks with visiting United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

Papandreou reassured Guterres that the new agency would offer protection to those who need it but stressed that Greek authorities would intensify their crackdown on migrants entering the country illegally for the good of the country and the European Union. “It is certain that the potential of Europe and Greece to receive and integrate [migrants] is limited,” Papandreou said. The prime minister also stressed the importance of the “cooperation of countries bordering the EU… to ensure that those who are really in need are protected while reducing the burden faced by EU member states.” The two men reportedly discussed the role of Turkey in this regard. In a related development yesterday, Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis said that he and his French counterpart Brice Hortefeux would tomorrow unveil a joint initiative aimed at “urging Turkey into respecting the agreements that it has signed.” The premier also briefed Guterres on a government bill, to be submitted in Parliament by next week, that aims to grant citizenship to tens of thousands of migrants living and working legally in Greece and to their children.

Guterres welcomed the news about the bill and the establishment of a new asylum-processing agency, noting that these measures would “secure human rights and social cohesion in Greece.” He added that he understood the need for Greece to conduct tighter border checks but remarked that “migration is a matter of human rights as well as national security protection.”

A working committee – comprising experts from the Citizens’ Protection, Interior and Health ministries, the UNHCR and a string of nongovernmental organizations – yesterday proposed that the separation of migrants meriting refugee status from economic migrants be carried out in special reception centers. These “first stop” centers are to be set up in due course though it is unclear where they will be located.

Apart from the claims for asylum being lodged by new migrants arriving in Greece daily, the new agency has some 44,500 applications that are pending.

This short post is long due, but still usefull for anyone to understand why Turkey is not Libya, in other words, why the externalisation of Fortress Europe borders to Turkey is a stake in a complex and hard bargaining between the EU and the regional megapower (in which money is not everything for the latter).

According to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, the European Union is ready to offer political advantages to Turkey in exchange for signing a readmission agreement. We found out what readmission means for Turkey, when Oktay Durukan, member of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly of Turkey, analytically presented (in Greek) Turkey’s policies during the conference “Suspended people”, that took place in Thessaloniki on October 30th, 2009. It is worth pointing out a little known fact that was mentioned in the conference: Turkey can only offer asylum to European Union member state nationals!

Turkey was one of the countries that negotiated about the Refugee Status in the 1951 Refugee Convention, and was one of the first countries to sign it. However, Turkey has retained one of the Convention’s paragraphs, the so-called “geographical limitation”, thus still offering protection only to migrants involuntarily displaced “as a result of events in Europe”. Therefore and according to the aforementioned paragraph, Turkey welcomes only EU member states’ nationals as refuge applicants.

Third country nationals, also referred to as “non-Europeans”, claiming refugee status in Turkey have to apply in a Turkish police station for a “temporary asylum status” regardless of their application to UNHCR, which has to pre-exist. If they are arrested before managing to apply for refugee status, then they reach a dead end: the police will not accept an application for the temporary refugee status and consequently deny them access to any refugee status application at all.

The ”lucky” ones who are recognized as asylum seekers by the UNHCR are then dispersed across the country, hosted in 30 so-called “satellite towns”. There they live in average for two to three years while the final decisions on their requests for asylum and resettlement are pending. They are obliged to find shelter on their own and receive little assistance with regards to daily expenses or health-care. The chances for declared work are minimal thus many of them are forced into illegal work, mainly as sex workers. Last but not least, they are obliged to pay a resident fee in order to obtain a residence permit.

EU to grant visa flexibility in return for readmission agreement

The European Union is reportedly ready to introduce some visa flexibility if Turkey signs a readmission agreement to tackle the flow of illegal immigrants to Europe.

The European Union and Turkey will discuss the readmission agreement again Dec. 4. Visa flexibility will be introduced once Ankara agrees to sign the agreement to deal with illegal immigration to Europe, a high-ranked official from the European Commission in Brussels has revealed.

“We will start the new round of discussions between [the commission] and Turkey on the readmission agreement in Ankara on Dec. 4,” a senior official from the commission said under condition of anonymity during a meeting with Turkish journalists. “This is certainly a critical issue.”

A significant number of people fleeing their poverty-stricken or war-torn countries of origin seek an opportunity to live in Europe. Turkey is the main route for thousands of illegal immigrants coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East.

The agreement would be binding for the entire union, as no individual solution is envisioned, the official said, adding that the financial burden would be shared. “The EU will grant support to Turkey to tackle the problem. We have expressed our readiness to look into all means to help,” the official said. “Of course we have budgetary limitations, but we are ready to help you.”

EU officials held the first round of talks Nov. 5 in Ankara to convince their Turkish counterparts to sign a readmission agreement. The EU member states, which apply a common asylum policy in line with the Dublin-2 Convention, have been seeking cooperation from candidate countries. According to Chapter 24 of negotiations between the EU and Turkey, Brussels is increasing pressure on Ankara with a call to adopt more deterrence measures or grant asylum to immigrants.

The readmission bargain may result in visa flexibility for Turkish citizens, the official said, adding, “As soon as the readmission agreement is signed, we will offer a lot of new opportunities in terms of visas.”

Some EU member countries set a pre-condition of readmission in order to facilitate visa-free travel, he said. “We cannot consider any visa facilitation with Turkey if we do not have a readmission agreement between the EU and Turkey,” the official said. “Once we have a readmission agreement, we will be very open to negotiate visa facilitation. Journalists, academics, business people and scientists will be able to travel easily to the EU.”

After the European Court of Human Rights granted two Turkish drivers visa-free travel for business purposes, Turkish diplomats kicked off a campaign to widen visa flexibility in cooperation with business associations. Turkey advocates that the court ruling be applied to students, academics, artists, scientists and businessmen under the Customs Union agreement.

Germany has already introduced new regulations in line with the court verdict, but most of the other EU member states are still reluctant to take any further steps.

Last year, Turkey detained some 68,000 illegal immigrants attempting to make their way into the European Union. According to official statistics, up to 18,000 asylum seekers are waiting in Turkey for acceptance to a third country.

Existing Turkish regulations do not allow the country to grant asylum to people from outside the European Council member states.

PS: in April last year, in a case that received widespread publicity, 18 Syrians and Iranian citizens, including 5 recognized as refugees by the UNHCR, were forced by threat of weapons by Turkish soldiers to cross borders swimming through a non-guarded part of the river that separates Turkey from Iraq.

This is an example of a unilateral, ‘black’ expulsion of people to a third country they have nothing to do with. 4 of them died, including one Iranian of the recognized ones by the UNHCR . The latter condemned the incident in a press release, based on testimonies received by survivors. To date, however, no serious investigation into the incident has taken place.

The assault on the 17-year- old refugee is a “cold case”.

The assault on the 17-year-old refugee Mr. Mohamed Hussein Khantar by police guards in the Pagani refugee camp last October is considered a “cold case”. The same applies for the case of the death of the Pakistani immigrant Mohamed Kamran- who had been allegedly tortured in the police department of Nikea in Athens

According to newspaper Avgi’s sources, during the preliminary investigations conducted with regards to the assault case, Mytilene’s state attorney could not find sufficient evidence leading to possible prosecutions of police guards in the Pagani refugee camp. Thus, the case is considered cold, and all preliminary investigations regarding police officials are going to be archived.

The manner in which the case is concluded, confirms the fears of various bodies and organizations that an abuse case would be covered- up by the police forces. It is claimed that witnesses in the Pagani camp were offered “pink cards” in return for their silence, and were sent to Athens, where it is impossible to be traced.

Moreover, questions arise with regards to the contradictory conclusions after Mr. Khantar’s examination. According to his attending physician’s statement, injuries and traumatic lesions were found on his head, back area and hands; however, the medical examiner concluded that his injuries were older than the day of the alleged police assault.

The police assault has allegedly taken place in the afternoon of October 22nd, in the Pagani refugee camp, just a few hours after Mr. Spyros Vougias, who is the undersecretary of the Ministry of Citizen Protection, visited the camp. After the event was made public, the Ministry of Citizen Protection ordered a preliminary investigation of the case, which was conducted by Mytilene’s state attorney.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has made an announcement, pleading for an in-depth investigation of the case and a subsequent prosecution of the people involved. The Greek political party SYRIZA is planning to bring the topic in parliamentary discussion.

Kamran’s case

With regards to Mohamed Kamran’s case, leaked information from the Ministry of Citizen Protection reveal that toxicology tests show Kamran intoxicated; according to the same leak, the post mortem toxicology investigation found Kamran using alcohol and other substances before his death.

However, Mr. Fragiskos Ragoussis, Kamran family’s attorney stated that there are no official toxicology test results yet, and that in any case his clients are going to ask for a test re-run, since according to the Greek law the family has the right to appoint an external medical examiner during the autopsy.

The Iranian political refugees are ex-members of P.M.O.I. They were recruited from countries near Iran, where they had found shelter, after being chased by Khomeini’s regime and were transported to a camp in Iraq for military training. They joined the organization believing that they would fight for political change and the freedom of their people. But, in the camp they encounter a very illiberal system, totally different with their personal beliefs, humiliations, constant brainwashing in order to exalt the organization’s leader and many times, torture and imprisonments. Now, they consider P.M.O.I. to be even worse than Khomeini himself.
In 2002, P.M.O.I. signed a secret agreement with U.S.A., which has invaded Iraq, according to which Americans had to keep for 5 years all the dissidents of the organization in a secret prison camp (T.I.P.F.), 50 kilometres outside Bagdad, and P.M.O.I. had to give information about Iran in return. In this prison, they suffered heavy torture again until they were set free in 2007, after the agreement expired. The United Nations’ High Committee for Refugees recognized them as political refugees in 2006 after interview via satellite, while they were still in prison.

The following is the testimony of one of the hunger strikers, as he wrote it:

“After the war between U.S.A and Iraq, one of the American commanders (general Odierno) came to our base, camp Ashraf near Bagdad , and told us that we can not be armed anymore and that they will help the ones of us, who want to go to other countries.
Note that this was a lie from the start because P.M.O.I. (our former organization) had secretly signed an agreement with the Americans to hold us captives for 5 years. As a result, instead of helping us leave Iraq they put as in a camp called T.I.P.F. (Temporary Interview & Protection Facility). We were supposed to stay there for 2 or 3 months but were set free 5 years later.
This “camp” was no different than Guantanamo prison. We were dressed in uniforms and we lived in tents. We were allowed to take one 3 minutes shower every 10 days and our food was M.R.E. (Meal Ready to Eat), which is provided to the American soldiers when they take part in military operations and is therefore not suitable for long-term consumption. They also used us for testing new American drugs. When we had headaches or sleeping disorders they gave us pills with false names without limitations for pills per day. I particularly remember a painkiller called oltrom which we could take 10 or 20 times per day.As a result, lots of us developed psychological problems. Some times they didn’t provide us new razors to shave and diseases were transferred from one to another through the old and common razors.
For 2 years no one knew that there was a prison in this part of the world until 5 persons escaped from the “camp” and told to BBC radio and human rights organizations, like Red Cross, United Nations High Committee for Refugees etc., that there is a top secret prison 50 kilometers outside Bagdad. When the Americans were informed about this incident they removed the black flag, which meant that this was a P.O.W. (prisoners of war) camp, they brought a generator and built other facilities in order to alter the prison image and trick human rights organizations. Then UNHCR wanted to have an interview with us but the Americans allowed it one year later. The interview took place via satellite because the Americans claimed that it was unsafe for the UNHCR members to come in Iraq. On the 5th of May 2006 we were finally recognized as political refugees.
Despite that fact, the U.S. army refused to send our case files to the countries, which accept refugees. The government of Iraq started then to push U.S. army to set us free. Finally in December of 2007 the prison gate opened and we were allowed to leave in groups of 4-5 people without any documents.
I was in the third group and managed through a lot of trouble to arrive to the Kurdish area of Iraq. There I paid a smuggler to help me enter Turkey illegally. I went to the UNHCR ‘s office in Ankara where I was given 2 papers certifying that I am a refugee and I was sent to Afion city to introduce myself to the local police. At first I was welcomed but a week later I was arrested because Turkey has signed a security contract with Iran and I was now considered a threat for Turkey’s national security. They took me to the borders with Iraq.”

PAGANI DETENTION CENTRE, Greece, October 23 (UNHCR) – A UNHCR delegation has called for a crowded migrant detention centre on the Greek island of Lesvos to be closed after visiting the facility with a senior government official.

More than 700 men, women and children are packed into the Pagani centre, which lacks space and adequate hygiene and sanitation facilities to cope with such a large number of people, many of whom might be asylum-seekers and thus of concern to the UN refugee agency.

“Freedom, freedom, freedom,” the detainees chanted, as Deputy Citizens’ Protection Minister Spyros Vougias and the UNHCR delegation, led by Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, visited the facility on Thursday.

Both men condemned the poor conditions, which included about 200 women and children living in one ward with just two toilets and one shower. They saw damp mattresses soiled by water leaking from the toilets.

Deputy Minister Vougias, visiting Pagani during his first week in office, apologized to the detainees, who are mainly from Afghanistan and Somalia. “What I have seen today is a human tragedy, with conditions in which no human being should be kept,” he said.

“There is an urgent need to release vulnerable groups,” the minister stressed, while pledging that the government would improve the processing of new arrivals and work to ensure better living conditions.

Tsarbopoulos, head of the UNHCR office in Greece, said Pagani “should be shut down,” adding that the situation there reflected the impasse of policies applied at entry points, which led to people being detained.

He said UNHCR recommended that appropriate reception facilities, with screening mechanisms and expert staff, should be established at entry points, including islands like Lesvos which faces Turkey. These would help identify people in need of international protection and afford them special care.

“In parallel, drastic changes to the asylum system should be immediately introduced and the relevant responsibilities should be removed from the police and transferred to a political body,” Tsarbopoulos said, adding that he hoped the government’s commitment to improvement would result in concrete action.

Some 5,500 irregular migrants and asylum-seekers were detained in Lesvos during the first eight months of this year after crossing from Turkey, compared to more than 13,000 in 2008 and 6,100 in 2007. Most originated from conflict-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.

UNHCR raises alarm over young migrants held in Greece

September 24, 2009

The UN Refugee Agency repeated its criticism towards Greece for holding 140 young migrants at a detention camp on a Greek island on Tuesday. The UNHCR said the unaccompanied minors, mainly Afghans, should not have been detained at the Pagani centre on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea.

Ketty Kehayoglou, UNHCR Greece, said the UNHCR would “alert Greek authorities to the fate of these minors, who should not be detained but who have not been offered any sort of structured reception“.

The UN Refugee Agency has previously urged Greece, a major entry point into Europe for migrants, to stop placing children and asylum seekers in detention camps.

Gilles van Moortel, spokesperson for UNHCR in Brussels, says the other EU Member States should not return refugees to Greece under the Dublin regulation. “As long as Greece does not guarantee the legal rights of the individual and as long as other European countries despite that are returning asylum-seekers to Greece, this rotation will continue. The Dublin-system does not work”, he explained.

Earlier this summer UNHCR pulled out of its cooperation with Greece and has recommended that countries make exceptions to the Dublin regulation, refraining from returning asylum-seekers to Greece.

UN refugee agency shocked at conditions at Greek detention facility

28 August 2009 –The United Nations refugee agency said it was shocked by the conditions at a detention facility on the Greek island of Lesvos which was overcrowded and holding 200 unaccompanied children.Staff from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) visited the detention centre at Pagani, built to hold between 250 and 300 people, earlier this week, according to the agency’s spokesperson Andrej Mahecic.

“They were shocked at the conditions in the facility, where more than 850 people are held, including 200 unaccompanied children, mostly from Afghanistan,” he told reporters in Geneva today.

UNHCR staff described the condition of the centre as “unacceptable,” he stated, adding that one room houses over 150 women and 50 babies, many suffering from illness related to the cramped and unsanitary conditions of the centre.

Greece’s Deputy Minister of Health and Social Solidarity has assured UNHCR that all the unaccompanied children at Pagani will be transferred to special reception facilities by the end of the month, and some measures have already been taken.

Mr. Mahecic noted that the situation in Pagani is “indicative of broader problems relating to irregular migration and Greece’s asylum system,” which UNHCR has been trying to assist with.

Last year, it worked with Greek officials to elaborate proposals to completely overhaul the country’s asylum system, including specific measures to protect asylum-seeking children, but these have yet to be implemented.

The agency also pointed out that while nearly 2,700 unaccompanied children are known to have arrived in the country last year, many more are believed to have entered undetected.

“Greece has no process for assessing the individual needs and best interests of these children,” said Mr. Mahecic. “While the Government has made efforts to increase the number of places for children at specialized, open centres, arrivals outstrip these efforts and children remain in detention for long periods.”

The agency is involved in a project aimed at improving reception facilities on the islands of Samos, Chios and Lesvos and at the Evros land border, he added.

UNHCR objects to Greece’s new asylum regulations

20/07/2009

ATHENS, Greece — The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday (July 17th) it is suspending its participation in advisory committees examining asylum requests in Greece to protest newly adopted rules on granting asylum. The agency said the new regulations will compromise the efficiency and fairness of the procedure to determine refugee status in Greece, as required by international and European legislation. New processing rules would only make the application system more protracted, it warned. Last year, Greece granted asylum to 379 people out of nearly 20,000 requests, one of the lowest acceptance rates in the EU. (Kathimerini, AFP, AP – 18/07/09)

The rift between the northern and southern EU states is set to grow larger as yesterday’s meeting of EU Interior Ministers in Stockholm postponedany re-examination of the Dublin II Regulation till 2014. The Dublin II Regulation, which stipulates that migrants must apply for asylum in the first EU member state they enter, has resulted in what southern EU states claim is disproportionate pressure on the immigrant reception services in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta.

Roberto Maroni, Italy’s interior minister and member of the right wing Lega Nord, demanded that the issue of ‘burden-sharing’ should be one of the top priorities in the EU’s new five-year plan on justice issues. As a result, the EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot agreed to make the European Refugee Fund applicable to all incoming migrants, not just those successfully claiming asylum and that several million euros in aid will be given to the Mediterranean states to spend on additional reception centres, food and social support for migrants.

This comes against the backdrop of a number of other recent developments. On Wednesday, the Greek and Italian Prime Ministers

met and agreed on a common front to push for EU policy to curbing the numbers of illegal migrants, negotiating repatriation pacts between Brussels and the migrants’ states of origin and transit countries and increasing the role of the EU’s border monitoring agency Frontex.

Wednesday also saw the deportation of 90 migrants by air to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the latest in a growing number of flights from Athens as Greece seeks to remove the 99% plus of migrants whose asylum claims the Greek state routinely turns down.

Earlier in the week the UNHCR criticised both countries for their immigration policies. Greece was criticised for the decision to destroy the Patras migrant camp and deport some of the migrants before their asylum claims had been examined. It also appealed to Greece to avoid so-called “push-backs” of migrants originating from war zones (Greece regularly buses migrants back to Turkey without any due process).

Athens has recently accused Ankara of failing to stop clandestine immigration through Turkish territory, which the Greeks, and now even the EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot, say has pushed their resources to the limit and is destabilising “Greek democracy” (a reference to the recent election of extreme right wing LAOS MEPs). Interestingly, new figures from the Greek coastguard show a pronounced drop in migrant interceptions over the past few months.

Greece officials have also been examining disused army barracks to open as temporary reception centres for the thousands of migrants awaiting the processing of their asylum applications. One likely choice is a disused military site on the island of Evia.

Italy has also been the recipient of

forceful criticism from the UNHCR about its use of force when intercepting 82 mainly Eritrean migrants on July 1st 30 miles off the Lampedusa coast, who were then returned to Libya under Italy’s own ‘push-back’ immigration policy. A ”significant number” of people on board the boat, including nine women and six children, were returned illegally as they had legitimate claims to asylum status, the agency claimed.

In an astonishing fit of pique, Italy’s EU Affairs Minister, Andrea Ronchi, rebuffed the criticism, saying the UNHCR ”should be ashamed of itself” and should ”apologise to Italy” over the allegations. ”These are hasty, false, demagogic, offensive and repugnant accusations that offend our armed forces, who every day demonstrate their morality, their dedication, humanity, competence and sacrifice”.

UN criticises Italian, Greek asylum policies

The UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, today (14 July) criticised Italy’s treatment of would-be asylum-seekers and Greece’s decision to close down a camp housing asylum-seekers and change its laws on asylum.

The UNHCR said it feared that Italy’s new policy of intercepting migrants at sea may has resulted in failures to honour its obligations to asylum-seekers and in maltreatment of migrants. It says that, since May, Italy has picked up 900 people at sea and returned them to the north African coast from which they sailed.

In a statement, the UNHCR said it had “expressed serious concerns about the impact of this new policy which, in the absence of adequate safeguards, can prevent access to asylum and undermines the international principle of non-refoulement”, which is intended to prevent refugees being returned to places where their lives or freedoms could be threatened.

The UNHCR cited a case on 1 July when the Italian navy picked up 82 people 30 miles from the southern island of Lampedusa. A “significant number” of the group wanted to claim asylum but were sent back to Libya on a Libyan ship and placed in detention centres, the UNHCR said. It has asked the Italian authorities to provide information on those sent back to Libya.

It added that it had been told “disturbing accounts” of Italian personnel using force to transfer the migrants onto the Libyan ship, resulting in six people needing medical attention. Their belongings, including documents, were taken from them and have not yet been returned. “Those interviewed spoke of the distress they were in after four days at sea and said that the Italian navy did not offer them any food during the 12-hour operation to return them to Libya,” UNHCR said.

Of the group of 82, 76 were from Eritrea, including nine women and at least six children. A recent report by Human Rights Watch said Eritrea was “one of the most closed and repressive states in the world”, and the government stands accused of repression and abuse of its citizens, including detention, torture, forced labour and restrictions of freedom of movement and expression.

Greece was similarly criticised on a number of counts, including its decision to close down a makeshift camp in Patras on 12 July, which left many of its residents, including registered asylum-seekers, without a roof over their heads.

An unknown number of undocumented residents of the camp were arrested and taken to a police station in Patras, where, according to the UNHCR, translation and interpretation services may be inadequate. The organisation also voiced concern about the decision to transfer 44 unaccompanied minors to a special reception centre in Konitsa, northern Greece.

The statement was issued just after Greece adopted a law decentralising asylum decisions to over 50 police directorates and abolishing the existing appeals process in favour of a judicial review that will address only points of law. “These new developments are likely to make protection even more elusive for those who need it in Greece,” it warned in a statement.

Almost 20,000 applications for asylum in Greece were lodged in 2008. During that year, Greece awarded international protection to just 379 people.